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Vol.
I No. 8 Pulp Mill Faces Suit Under Clean
Air Act By Charles Douglas
“Our neighborhood is exposed to the toxics from the pulp mill all the time and Evergreen's violations are a direct concern to us,” stated Elizabeth Eytchison of the Citizen's Pulp Mill Committee (CPMC) in a press release. “Our children are sick, people suffer and nothing changes. We decided it was time to act.” The CPMC, which has long contested the granting of emissions to normal pollution limits imposed on the pulp mill, was joined by Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs) and the Environmental Protection Information Center in filing the suit in federal court on Wednesday. CATs spokesperson Jason Beaver said the suit was of a completely different nature than the variances granted by the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District. “The variances don’t apply, they’re jut a local thing to deal with a local problem,” he said on Thursday. “When we gave them our 60 days notice…we really thought that we would hear from them.” Evergreen officials were equally difficult to hear from this week, as repeated calls from the Humboldt Sentinel were not responded to. “They spent a lot of money on marketing and advertising…meanwhile requesting another variance to continue to pollute beyond federally-stated guidelines,” Beaver said. “We say no, we want you to be under compliance, and we’re going to put it under the spotlight of a federal lawsuit.” Beaver said the filing itself would be difficult for Evergreen’s counsel to contest, as their own tests have shown them to be in violation. “There doesn’t have to be evidence, [Evergreen] applying for a variance is them blowing the test,” he said. Of particular concern to both Beaver and CPMC organizer Patrick Eytchson is the release of PM-10 emissions, which are fine particulates released in bursts during breakdowns in equipment. These particles have been found in studies to lodge deeply in the lung where they have numerous toxic effects such as heart and lung disease, respiratory symptoms and even premature death, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (www.epa.gov/air/urbanair/pm/) “I think a lot of us had hoped maybe Evergreen would clean up many things quick or they would choose not to operate a 40-year-old mill, but I think the managers see it as an important facility and they want to keep it in operation,” Eytchson said on Thursday. “We’re trying to communicate to people how living in a community is affected by having a craft pulp mill…it’s simply a matter of what kind of pollution controls exist in the mill, how well they’re maintained and that put a lot of responsibility on the owners of the plant to keep that toxic materials in the machinery and not out in the air or water. People aren’t perfect, they take shortcuts and make mistakes, the managers are just people, but the community is worried about health issues as well as the economy.” Other litigants claim Evergreen had not only the ability but the duty to change the pulp mill’s ways once they took possession of the plant early last year. “[Evergreen] had a duty to the public and to its workers to provide a legally compliant facility that could be sustaining,” stated Sharon Duggan of the Environmental Protection Information Center in a press release. “Evergreen has trivialized that duty from the outset.” While Eytchson expects a negotiated settlement on local variances to be announced at the next local air quality Hearing Board meeting on Jan. 20, his concerns continue regarding the transparency of a bureaucratic process. “It’s legal, it’s done all the time, probably the people in the regulatory agencies would say we can’t get our job done unless we do that sort of thing,” Eytchson said. “The law that’s set up includes the public in terms of laws that are eventually passed through a democratic process by representatives who then act in our benefit, supposedly, and then the public can voice their opinion in hearings -- but actually the public’s not that involved.” Neither Beaver or Eytchson could elaborate on the timetable for legal
proceedings, although they are expected to be extensive. The full text
of the Notice to File Suit Under the Clean Air Act is available on the
CATs website (www.alternatives2toxics.org). |
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Copyright © 2005-06, Humboldt Sentinel. All rights reserved. |
EUREKA
- Just as Evergreen Inc. cleared the way on one local pollution emission
variance and progressed in negotiations with local air quality officials,
the operator of the Samoa pulp mill now faces a federal law suit for violations
of the Clean Air Act which may cost them $32,000 for every day they are
out of compliance.